By Edward Kiesendahl
Week six marks the beginning of the second half of the season in high school football, and last Friday Wallenpaupack faced Scranton Prep in their sixth matchup. Both teams were 2-3 ahead of the game looking for an important league win. Prep’s season saw struggles early starting 0-3, but in week four their senior quarterback Will McPartland started his first game of the year leading the Cavaliers to a win over Delaware Valley then another over Scranton in week five. Wallenpaupack would be following up two straight weeks of third quarter woes that led to losses. However, they would have senior running back Logan Caruso back after missing last week’s game. The biggest questions heading into the game were: could Paupack contain McPartland and could Paupack keep up with Prep for a full four quarters.
The Buckhorns started the game marching down the field into the red zone, but they could not finish the drive and turned the ball over on downs. As the game progressed Paupack continued to turn the ball over on fourth downs, without kicker CJ Doty out with an illness, leading to a reoccurring issue. Scranton Prep took full advantage of this. In the first half they scored on three out of four of their drives, and without much offensive rebuttal coming from the Bucks the score sat at 17-0 at the half. Not much changed in the second half as Prep tacked on three more Touchdowns in the third quarter, followed by an uneventful fourth quarter.
For Wallenpaupack it was one of those nights that nothing seemed to go right. This will set them back to 2-4 on the season, but the opportunity to attain the program’s first winning season since 2018 is still very real with four winnable games ahead. Tomorrow the boys will take on the 2-4 Scranton Knights in another Lackawanna League matchup. Both teams have suffered from injuries recently, and it should be a tightly contested game. The game starts at 7:00 on Friday and it isat Scranton’s Veterans Memorial Stadium.
